“The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.” By Elbert Hubbard

Google has over 300 templates available for Google Drive which includes documents, spreadsheets, forms, presentations and drawings. Templates consist of newspapers, brochures, assessments, lesson plans etc. Below I give step by step directions of how to use templates in Google and Google Apps for Education (GAFE) along with submitting your own.

Step 2: At the top of the page you will see different types of templates. If you have a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) account you will see an extra section for your school at the top.

Step 3: Search for the template you are looking for in the search box or view based on categories on the left-hand side.

Step 4: Once you find a template you can click on the preview button to view. If you like the template chose ‘use this template’ and a copy of it will be made and placed in your Google drive. If you don’t like it, you can click the button to ‘browse template gallery’ and continue to look.

Teachers and students can also be creative and submit their own templates as well. I love this feature because you can customize your templates to fit your classroom needs. Making templates also gives your students a starting point but still allows the students to use higher order thinking skills and create. One of my favorite templates is using the Historical Facebook page template. I have also used the template for book studies. The students choose a character from their books and have to synthesize information from the character’s perspective. You can also make templates for balanced literacy such as running records, reading levels and word study.

Submitting a Template:

From drive:

Step 1: In your Google Drive, check the box on the document that you would like to make a template. Click on ‘More’ and then submit to template gallery.

Step 2: Fill in the information such as short description, categories etc

Step 3: Click on submit template

From templates main page:

Step 1: Click on submit a template

Step 2: Select your document from your drive that you want to submit

Step 3: Fill in the information such as short description, categories etc